Jordan Peterson

[TheMeInTeam]

Go back 500 years and it would have an enormous predictive value for outcome measures.

Misattributing what actually provided the advantage is pretty disingenuous in this context, unless you yourself actually believe "noble blood" confers an advantage independent of the circumstances typically surrounding it.

There's a reason sports psychology and athletic coaching as an academic discipline is almost singularly focused on practice methodology currently, and that's because USSR and US researchers realized 40-50 years ago that trying to identify genetic advantages in potential Olympic athletes was generally a futile endeavor.

I don't recall reading how the human genome was mapped in 1978 or earlier. A more convincing reason athletic coaching is focused on practice methodology is that this is something over which people have practical control...IE useful coaching is constrained to this area by necessity.

People born before 1980 are snowflakes obsessed with being special who can’t handle the thought that maybe all their talent came from their parents money

In the context of the discussion over the last few pages that's not a coherent response to anybody.

You mean I can compete with Usain Bolt in the 100yd dash if I work as hard as he does?

And I suppose I could have come up with the theory of relativity if I spent the same amount of time as Einstein thinking about it.

Certainly doesn't pass the sniff test.

Anders Ericksson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).

Hume, Patria A. (Patria Anne), Deborah A. Kerr, and Timothy R. Ackland. Best Practice Protocols for Physique Assessment in Sport. Singapore: Springer, 2018.

Richard H. Cox, Yijun Qiu and Zhan Liu, et al. Handbook of Research On Sport Psychology. New York : Toronto : New York: Macmillan ; Collier Macmillan Canada ; Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993.

And neither do these. These are books trying to sell something, and in doing so have incentive to state your case regardless of how well it's backed by reality. Surely they cite research as the basis for their conclusions. Do you have links to the research itself?

 

[Bootstoots]

It does and it doesn't. At the very top end .001% of any competition there are absolutely matters of physics that are impossible to get around, but we're talking about fractions of seconds at the top-end Olympic level.

Beyond that, skilled performance (in any field) is largely a matter of time invested perfecting the skill and efficiency of practice methodology. There's undoubtedly some genetic component to an individual's attention span and ability to stay focused on a goal long-term, but it's not really something we're at all capable of predicting at this time. If you want to call that talent, go for it, but that's generally not the definition of the term that people have in mind when they talk about Messi as a soccer talent.

There's a reason sports psychology and athletic coaching as an academic discipline is almost singularly focused on practice methodology currently, and that's because USSR and US researchers realized 40-50 years ago that trying to identify genetic advantages in potential Olympic athletes was generally a futile endeavor.

And yet, no woman has run the 100 m faster than 10.49. This difference is large and indisputably genetic; it cannot be accounted for by discrimination against female athletes.

More controversially, it's hard not to notice that the vast majority of men who have broken the 10 s barrier have been of West African descent, suggesting there may be some very slight advantages in West African populations that come into play at the very top end of competition. However, genetic studies are mostly inconclusive and it is not totally out of the realm of possibility that cultural/environmental differences (maybe there's more emphasis on athleticism among West Africans and in West African diaspora communities in the Americas than there is in other groups) may entirely account for the high representation of West African descended people in elite sprinting.

It is largely a waste of time to look for genetic advantages in individual athletes because athletic results are likely determined by hundreds to thousands of genes along with many environmental factors. It would have been especially infeasible with the technology of 40 or 50 years ago; it may be somewhat more feasible today, although still very difficult.

 

[Lexicus]

Misattributing what actually provided the advantage is pretty disingenuous in this context, unless you yourself actually believe "noble blood" confers an advantage independent of the circumstances typically surrounding it.

I'm not really sure how you managed to miss the point so thoroughly. But yes, this is exactly what I am trying to say about your claims regarding inequalities today and what actually produces them. You know that "noble blood" had nothing to do with socioeconomic inequalities in 1518, so the question is why the hell you think intrinsic inequality between people explains socioeconomic inequalities in 2018.

 

[sophie]

And neither do these. These are books trying to sell something, and in doing so have incentive to state your case regardless of how well it's backed by reality. Surely they cite research as the basis for their conclusions. Do you have links to the research itself?

lolwat? The latter two books are academic texts intended to serve as reference manuals for other academics in the field. The former is a more broad-audience text, but written by one of the premier researchers in sports training and sports psychology.

This IS the research itself.

 

[Ryika]

Anders Ericksson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).

I haven't actually read that book, but I've read about it in a few places. From what I know about it, I don't think the claim that aptitudes don't exist at all is at the center of the book, but instead it just reaffirms that you don't require talent to become good at something. Which of course I agree with, but you seem to be claiming that everybody, given equally efficient training, will arrive at the same point in the same time. That's just... nonsense. I mean, take a person with an IQ of 80, and a person with an IQ of 160, then give them the same chess training, you're saying that both will arrive at the same point?

I mean... Magnus Carlsen became chess grandmaster when he was 13, how could the training that a 13yo kid has had possibly be so good that he can beat people who have been professional players for multiple LIFETIMES of his? He clearly has aptitudes towards the skills required to play chess that most other people have not. Those would be useless had he not also put in the hard work that he did, but that hard work alone would not have gotten him where he is.

Or watch some interviews with Kim Jung Gi about his art. Unless he's making up stuff about how his brain views perspective, he clearly has a unique gift that allowed him to, again combined with hard work, to get where is he is now, at a point where most people will never arrive. He simply intuitively understands how to create things.

I mean hell, differences in intelligence clearly allow some people to learn faster than others, and the evidence that IQ is partially inheritable is overwhelming.

Hume, Patria A. (Patria Anne), Deborah A. Kerr, and Timothy R. Ackland. Best Practice Protocols for Physique Assessment in Sport. Singapore: Springer, 2018.

Richard H. Cox, Yijun Qiu and Zhan Liu, et al. Handbook of Research On Sport Psychology. New York : Toronto : New York: Macmillan ; Collier Macmillan Canada ; Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993.

So I'll surely not read two whole books... in summary, what are the concrete claims there?

IQ as a measure of "intelligence" is not well regarded by psychologists today. That said, I did note:

That was a response to Lexicus who seems to completely overstate your position, but yes, IQ is not a measure of "intelligence" - it's a measure for a particular set of skills that some people are better at and others are worse at. How could a person claim that having an aptitude towards these skills is not a talent?

 

[Berzerker]

noble blood 500 years ago probably carried with it a higher level of incestuous blood - and that was true 5000 years ago when Mesopotamian elites were marrying their half sisters/brothers

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not really sure how you managed to miss the point so thoroughly. But yes, this is exactly what I am trying to say about your claims regarding inequalities today and what actually produces them.

Yet the conclusion as you've stated so far is to ignore provable physical/genetic inequalities and prefer some inequality over other inequality without a self-consistent basis for doing so...I don't see a good reason to go for such a preference.

The latter two books are academic texts intended to serve as reference manuals for other academics in the field. The former is a more broad-audience text, but written by the premier researcher in sports training and sports psychology.

I'm not going to drop $100 just to peruse this. Presumably the authors did experiments to generate substantive data. Are the books the only place you can access this?

 

[Chose]

This is what it looks like to be intrinsically better at running than everyone else. Please don't tell #9 he only lost because he didn't work hard enough. Not only is that ignorant and wrong, but it's also condescending and rude:

Spoiler :

 

[sophie]

This is what it looks like to be intrinsically better at running than everyone else. Please don't tell #9 he only lost because he didn't work hard enough. Not only is that ignorant and wrong, but it's also condescending and rude:

Right. Fractions of a second in the top .001% of competitors. Glad we're on the same page here.

 

[Lexicus]

This is what it looks like to be intrinsically better at running than everyone else. Please don't tell #9 he only lost because he didn't work hard enough. Not only is that ignorant and wrong, but it's also condescending and rude:

The real question is whether you think these sorts of innate differences justify #4 making the same amount of money in one day as #9 makes in three years.

Even if we assume you(r side of the debate) are correct and socioeconomic outcomes are merely reflecting inherent and unchangeable inequality between people, surely it is unjust to punish people for innate characteristics they cannot control?

 

[Chose]

Right. Fractions of a second in the top .001% of competitors. Glad we're on the same page here.

Yeah, we are on the same page. I'm just not on the "it's highly doubtful that Usain Bolt is intrinsically better than me at running" page.

 

[Berzerker]

This is what it looks like to be intrinsically better at running than everyone else. Please don't tell #9 he only lost because he didn't work hard enough. Not only is that ignorant and wrong, but it's also condescending and rude:

Spoiler :

The lead runner in that photo looks painfully awkward - kinda like he's turning half way around to see why the crowd disappeared from his peripheral vision

reminds me of a South Park episode - Cartman finds out about the special olympics and tries to cash in. He can certainly whoop arse on the disabled kids. But instead of training he spends his time trying to imitate kids with disabilities and gets whooped by everyone. He still got a prize for coming in last.

 

[sophie]

Yeah, we are on the same page. I'm just not on the "it's highly doubtful that Usain Bolt is intrinsically better than me at running" page.

If you started at age 6, and devoted the same level of intensity and focus into sprinting as Bolt, in addition to having the same sort of access to coaches, equipment and facilities as Bolt; yeah, you'd probably be somewhere in the vicinity.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Even if we assume you(r side of the debate) are correct and socioeconomic outcomes are merely reflecting inherent and unchangeable inequality between people, surely it is unjust to punish people for innate characteristics they cannot control?

You mean like removing resources from people and given them to other people because you think they're not worthy enough of the stuff they possess? That kind of punishment?

 

[Ryika]

Right. Fractions of a second in the top .001% of competitors. Glad we're on the same page here.

The fact that the best of the best are close to each other is not an argument at all. These people have already been pre-selected to be the best of the best of the best [...] of the best, and everybody who did not have a body that is at the cutting edge of what is possible for a human, has already been removed from the equation.

It is way more interesting to take for example 10 random people, train them equally for a year or so, and see where they end up. Surely even those who put in the same amount of work will end up at different thresholds.

 

[Berzerker]

If you started at age 6, and devoted the same level of intensity and focus into sprinting as Bolt, in addition to having the same sort of access to coaches, equipment and facilities as Bolt; yeah, you'd probably be somewhere in the vicinity.

well that explains all the rich white kids in that photo

 

[Lexicus]

You mean like removing resources from people and given them to other people because you think they're not worthy enough of the stuff they possess? That kind of punishment?

So are you for a single flat tax on everyone, or do you think progressive taxation is okay?

 

[sophie]

You mean like removing resources from people and given them to other people because you think they're not worthy enough of the stuff they possess? That kind of punishment?

1:25

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So are you for a single flat tax on everyone, or do you think progressive taxation is okay?

The most accurate response to this question, which is off topic BTW, is "I'm not sure". Without more information I'd be more inclined to tax consumption rather than income. I suppose this would result in it being progressive in principle?

 

[Lexicus]

I suppose this would result in it being progressive in principle?

The opposite in fact. But if you believe that any measure to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor is an automatic self-own because it violates its own principles of fairness or whatever, you by default support the existence of a hereditary aristocracy, because that is what will emerge in the absence of any socially-sanctioned redistribution.

The most accurate response to this question, which is off topic BTW, is "I'm not sure". Without more information I'd be more inclined to tax consumption rather than income.

You only think it's off-topic because you don't actually understand the arguments I've been making. And for the record, I'm in favor of taxing wealth rather than income. What this means is that the richer you are, the more you pay in taxes.